Salon Will Start Charging its Web Readers

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: October 2, 2001

The Web magazine Salon, facing sharply lower advertising revenues and increased costs for gathering news, has decided to make its news and political coverage available only to paying subscribers.

The goal, said David Talbot, the editor of the six-year-old magazine, is to rely on circulation revenue for half of next year's $7.5 million budget. That goal, an ambitious one by the standard of any magazine, is an indication of the unremittingly sour climate for Web advertising.

Another high-profile online site, Steven Brill's Contentville, quit business on Friday, leaving its 15 employees without jobs. In an e-mail message to the staff, Mr. Brill said, ''Despite the great work of the Contentville staff and the great support we had from our partners, my idea for Contentville just didn't work.'' Contentville allowed readers to go to one site to find and purchase articles from a variety of newspapers and magazines, as well as books, dissertations and other sources.

''We're dealing in a very difficult environment, not only for advertising,'' said Michael A. Kupinski, a media analyst for A. G. Edwards. ''Finding subscription-based revenue is going to be a rough go.''

Mr. Talbot said in an interview yesterday that he aimed to get 250 to 300 new subscribers daily until the end of the year. Salon charges $30 for a one-year subscription and $50 for two years, he said.

In a message to subscribers, Mr. Talbot wrote: ''Some readers have implored Salon to reconsider this decision, pointing to the urgency of the times and the importance of Salon's coverage of world events. But this is precisely why we need our readers' support now. In recent days, Salon has committed substantial resources to covering the war between America and Islamic terrorism.'' Readers, he added, needed to pitch in.

The online advertising recession, which began nearly a year ago as one dot-com after another closed its doors, led Salon to develop its premium-content division in April. Since then, Mr. Talbot said, he has attracted 15,500 subscribers.

He said that two rounds of financing earlier this year had also brought in about $3.25 million, adding: ''We've got enough money to give us a cushion. There's no real crisis looming for Salon.'' The magazine's stock price closed yesterday at 22 cents a share. It was delisted from the Nasdaq national market earlier this year, but trades on the Nasdaq small cap market.